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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Crank 2: High Voltage

(This post originally appeared on October 14, 2009.)Did you see the first CRANK movie? Did you like it? Well, CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE picks up right where that one left off and is more of the same, only goofier and more over-the-top. Jason Statham, who’s always watchable, plays the same character, who didn’t die at the end of the first movie after all. His heart is removed by Chinese gangsters and replaced by an artificial one that needs a jolt of electricity every so often to keep functioning, so he has to keep shocking himself to stay alive while he tries to hunt down the guys who stole his heart. The plot is even sillier than that brief description makes it sound, and the highly stylized direction by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who also wrote the film, squeezes every possible bizarre image out of it.Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy CRANK 2. It’s probably not going to be for everybody, but I found it entertaining. Just be aware that it makes a movie like, say, SHOOT ‘EM UP, seem genteel and restrained.

2 comments:

I liked this one, too, and it's kind of a shame that Jason Statham didn't keep cranking (sorry) them out. Sure, he's doing fine now and making classier movies and even doing a little comedy, but I miss him in movies like this.

I really liked this one even if it maybe isn't as well put together as the first film. It's... so vividly insane. The story veers off into fantasy with psychedelic breaks for cartoons and that scene where Statham battles the villain in a show-stopping kaiju mash-up like a brutal low budget Godzilla vs King Ghidorah.

And that conclusion (SPOILER!) with Statham standing there on fire, staring right into the camera and flipping us off.

Seriously, the movie reminded me more of 1960's underground comics than it did other action movies. Statham's hero, and the freaky way his adventures are presented, have more than a little in common with the Checkered Demon, Wonder Warthog and Trashman.